Intel Atom Processor Appears in New Lenovo Desktop

While the 2009 International CES expo saw any number of PC vendors offering a wide range of laptops and mininotebooks that use the Intel Atom processor, few OEMs talked about their plans for a desktop that uses the Atom chip. Now, Lenovo is looking to offer a low-cost desktop or "nettop" that uses an Intel Atom 230 processor. The Lenovo H200 desktop is geared toward consumers but sells at a low price of $400.

On Jan. 13, Lenovo announced a new consumer desktop
called the H200, which uses an Intel Atom 230 processor running at 1.6GHz. This
low-cost desktop or "nettop" starts at about $400 and is now available,
according to Lenovo. The Lenovo H200 also offers a number of other standard
features, including an Intel GMA 950 chip set, a minimum of 1GB of main
memory and a 160GB SATA (serial ATA) hard disk drive.

While
a desktop using an Intel Atom processor is rare, it is not unexpected and
Intel has been encouraging its OEMs partners to try Atom in a number of different
form factors, including desktops or nettops. In 2008, Hewlett-Packard
reportedly showed its own version of a nettop in Taiwan called the HP Compaq
Presario mini-Q 2020.
See notebooks and netbooks shown at the 2009 CES here.
In addition to Lenovo and HP, Asus, which has had
success with netbooks starting with the Eee PC, and MSI also have desktops that
use an Intel Atom processor.
While the Intel Atom processor might help lower the
costs of desktops even further and offer enough processing power to access the
Internet and support basic applications, it is unlikely that many businesses,
even small and midsized businesses (SMBs), would have much of an interest.
"The
performance of the processor is adequate for things like going online and
writing up documents," John Spooner, an analyst with Technology Business
Research, wrote in an e-mail.
"For
the most part, it's going to be for systems sold in emerging market, though,"
Spooner added. "I don't see Atom-based desktops being a big hit for businesses
or consumers in the U.S. or Western Europe, where something like a [Intel] Celeron
or an AMD Sempron would probably be accepted more readily."
In addition to the H200 desktop, Lenovo has also
used the Intel Atom in its own line of mininotebooks, including the
IdeaPad S10, which was revamped at the 2009 CES. Hewlett-Packard and Dell
also announced new mininotebooks at CES that use the Intel Atom.
Lenovo also announced two other consumer desktops on
Tuesday: The IdeaCentre K220 and the K230. Each of these machines uses an Intel
Core 2 Quad processor.